Jaina View of Life

Author(s): T G Kalghatgi
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur

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Jaina View of Life
substantive sense. The Nyayakośa defines manas in the sense of the inner organ which controls the mental functions.
It is difficult to define mind. If at all it is to be defined, it is always in terms of its own processes. Even the psychologists of the present day find it difficult to give a definition of mind without reference to the mental processes. Older psychologists meant by mind something that expresses its nature, powers and functions in the modes of individual experiences and of bodily activity. McDougall also says that we are bound to postulate that "something”; and “I do not think", he writes, “that we can find a better word to denote something than the old fashioned word mind.” McDougall defines mind as an organized system of mental and purposive forces. Wundt says that mind is a pre-scientific concept. It covers the whole field of internal experience.
The Jainas did not merely postulate the existence of mind without any evidence. They found the evidence in the experiences of the world. They also give the empirical proof for the operation of the mind. The contact of the sense organ with the soul alone does not give cognition in the relevant experiences because there is the absence of manas. Something else is necessary for the cognition, and that is the mind. Again, the mind has the functional connotation which speaks for its nature. "Just as speech signifies the function of speaking, fire expresses the function of burning and the light shows the light.”9
Orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy postulate the existence of mind as an internal sense organ. In the evidence of cognition the contact of the soul with the sense organs is not sufficient. We must posit the existence of a manas, some additional condition which brings them together. For instance, a man may not hear a sound or see an object when
7. McDougall (W): Outlines of Psychology, 12th Ed., p. 35. 8. Wundt : Physiological Psychology-Introduction, p. 3. 9. Abhidhānarajendra, Vol. VI. p. 82.